Looking at Bush

After 9/11, I think we've got it wrong: thinking about this President as loyal to his base is probably the worst way to analyze his policies. We should have known that since then this is an administration more paranoid about its own power and its own coherence than any party loyalties that might have made them ascend to their commanding position. Certainly the news analysis of the President should have shifted to this standpoint after the last Congress began to diverge with Bush on immigration last year and the year before. But the good faith of the press towards this administration apparently is inexhaustible. Either that or they cannot cognize the simple fact that the President's decisions could be made without regard to anything other than the saftey of his own political position. And instead of analyzing this coherency--as the Washington Post has begun to do with its series on Cheney--we keep looking for hidden or latent origins informing choices that are made simply with regard to their ability to will power.
This good faith is evident today in the New York Times opinion page:

Judging from his decision yesterday to commute the 30-month sentence of I. Lewis Libby Jr. — who was charged with perjury and convicted — untarnished ideals are less of a priority than protecting the secrets of his inner circle and mollifying the tiny slice of right-wing Americans left in his political base.

Witness how unanalyzed the phrase "protecting the secrets of his inner circle" remains throughout the article, while the phrase "mollifying the tiny slice of right-wing Americans left in his political base" is continually used to make sense of the Libby commution. The Washington Post's headline "Bush Makes Libby Decision Largely Alone" is more accurate, and the news section of the Times has a better grip on reality. But notice how Bush's "doing what he wants" in the Times article is made to seem whimsical and tyrranous as opposed to motivated:

President Bush’s decision to commute the sentence of I. Lewis Libby Jr. was the act of a liberated man — a leader who knows that, with 18 months left in the Oval Office and only a dwindling band of conservatives still behind him, he might as well do what he wants.

This isn't the act of a "liberated man:" this is a style of government that has developed and fostered in this administration consistently throughout the past years. Bush has been "liberated" ever since 9/11, and not because he was thereby able to use power more freely by channeling it slyly through the patriotism the event generated, but because he has crafted a way to govern that is concerned constantly with its own liberation--that is, its own ability to consistently wield enormous amounts of power. "Liberation" is the act whereby those who would curb Presidential power are stifled and defended against, but not as a reaction to them. Rather, "liberation" is the act of freeing up of the reserves of executive power for their unfettered use (at the expense of oversight) in the use of this power. It is the use of power such that any reflective position of analysis is already unable to penetrate and destabilize the coherence and the power contained within that action, that use. This is why criticisms of this administration tend to be after-the-fact as opposed to wide reaching, future-oriented and policy-oriented: it is hard to get a grip on any action of this administration and prepare for them because the administration has no power outside of its use. Thinking that this poor news coverage is due to the fast-paced and sensational trend in news writing and analysis only remains at the surface of this phenomenon: the administration does not "wield" power, or preserve power outside of its use, and so it is maintained in a way that remains impervious to any effort to make sense of it. This even includes the administration's own efforts.
Why? Because we aren't oriented towards power in a way that we can perceive how it wills itself, how it reduplicates itself. We are oriented towards power in such a way that we make sense of it in terms of its ability to be used. For Bush, power is only used power, or power that has, in its future-directedness (that is, in what we would call its potential or ability to be used), already effectively used (and not used up, mind you, but becoming-used)--that is, in any action that has not actually occured yet, all the wheels have already been set in motion to bring it about... there is no interim where the power is not used yet. Hence Cheney's remark on Meet the Press the last time he made an appearance there: when asked whether he would invade Iraq knowing what he knew now, Cheney replied he would. This remark appears insane if we cognize it from the standpoint of a normal analysis of power--an analysis that sees power as something caused, something held as a potential, and something eventually used in order to create an effect. As soon as we see that it is Nietzschian power, power that wills itself to power again and again, eternally, Cheney's statement becomes more sane, more in tune with a characteristic attitude of this administration. For we then understand his reply to be something other than this: "if I knew what I knew now--the lack of reasons to apply the power we held in potentia to Iraq--I would apply this power again anyway." Rather, it becomes cognizable as the following: "the chance to bring the government again to a position in which its power is used on Iraq is completely in accordance with the nature of the power that we used already on Iraq when we invaded in 2003, therefore it should be used then again, yes--the use of this power was and is inevitable, unquestionable, eternal." As soon as we get this, we will shy away from talking about this "new" trend in Bush's action, prompted by his total lack of support and the approaching end of his administration. We might begin to criticize Bush on the basis of a claim to a particular type of power (the will to power) that he factually did not employ in the bungled invasion of Iraq--his vision of his power only extends to his decisions that effectuate its use, not to the events themselves, and this is in complete contradiction to this type of power that he acts like he is using. Regardless, it is ironic that the phenomenon only has come into view due to this upcoming cessation, when it was (and should have been viewed as) always the case since 9/11.
The Times' headline sums this all up: "For Bush, Action in Libby Case Was a Test of Will". Indeed, the crucial thing here is will. But, for Bush, there are no "tests" of a will that wills only itself again to power, a will that is eternally willing itself.